Halloween creator John Carpenter joked that the Michael Myers' mask for the 2018 reboot looked awful, according to the film's makeup artist. Carpenter served as an executive producer on the reboot, which was directed by David Gordon Green. Green co-wrote the screenplay with Danny McBride after the two pitched their vision for the film - envisioned as a new trilogy - that picked up years after the events of Halloween.
Michael Myers' iconic mask in the original Halloween was actually a William Shatner as Captain Kirk mask from Star Trek that was altered for the movie. The mask, which was designed by Tommy Lee Wallace, was painted white to give it an emotionless human face. Over the years, however, adjustments have been made by different designers who have worked on various films in the series, making Shatner's appearance unrecognizable.
Christopher Nelson is the makeup artist in charge of updating Michael Myers' mask in the 2018 Halloween reboot. As a designer on Halloween, Nelson was tasked with aging the signature Michael Myers' mask. The designer incorporated cracks in the mask to represent a realistic type of damage due to forty years of aging. Eventually, he had to share his work with the franchise's creator, Carpenter. While speaking during his podcast The Thing with Two Heads, Nelson shared Carpenter's unexpected reaction:
We're upstairs and David Gordon Green comes to me and goes, 'Hey, have you gone and shown John the mask yet?' and I go, 'No, should I?' and he goes, 'Yeah, show him the mask.’ And I go downstairs and I'm all excited to show John the mask and John's sitting at the monitor and I walk up, and my buddy Kevin Wasner, who's my key [makeup effects artist] on the movie, he knew what was coming so he just kinda walked over to the corner of the room. And I go, 'Hey John, what do you think of the mask?' and he goes, 'Looks like sh-t.' And I just went, 'Aw,' and I look at Kevin and he's just like, 'I told you he was gonna say that!
As the creator of the series and an executive producer on the movie, Carpenter's opinion matters a lot. Since the mask doesn't seem to have changed much, it's obvious he was joking when he told Nelson it looks terrible. Most likely, his comment was a self-deprecating dig at the original film's Shatner-based original mask design. The mask itself has appeared in every single Halloween movie except for 1982's Halloween III: Season of the Witch, which didn't feature Michael Myers at all.
Following the fire at the conclusion of Halloween, Myers' mask is sure to have endured even more damage and yet another redesign to show effects the fire caused. Perhaps the filmmakers will choose to redesign it drastically, but that seems unlikely given the mask's iconic status. With Halloween's success, two sequels are scheduled to pick up where the film left off starting with Halloween Kills, which will be released in October 2021 after being delayed a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and concluding with Halloween Ends set for release in 2022.
Source: The Thing with Two Heads
